Heavy rain

The course has been hammered with heavy rain. We managed to get it open yesterday but we had to push a lot of water. The course is open today but is still very wet under foot.

The course has been prepared for captains day tomorrow but we will need to see how wet it is on sat night/sun morning to see what can be done to prepare the greens.

Oil leak

We had a hydraulic oil leak on the 9th green at the weekend. It's roughly 12 meters in length, 6 meters of it isn't to bad so we have cored it, overseeded and dressed with sand. The other 6 meters was a bit more severe and would take a lot longer to recover, so we have replaced the turf. We don't have a turf nursery so we have had to improvise. We stripped the damaged turf at the 9th and have replaced it with a strip of turf off the back of the 17th, we used the 17th as it is the biggest green and we can bring it in a foot at the back. We then replaced the turf at the back of the 17th with a strip of turf from ladies tee at 16. This will now ensure all the greens and surrounds have grass coverage and it will just be a case of knitting together. This will keep damage down to a minimum and the 16th ladies tee is big enough that the damaged turf will not effect ladies. I've put up a series of photos they may not be in order as when I add from my phone they reorder themselves for some reason.

Fine weather for ducks!

The course took a hammering last night with the rain, there is quite a lot of casual water but the rain has gone off so hopefully we will get the course open ASAP. The wee course is open and the greens have no casual water and have drained very well.

The wall at the first has also been finished, all that is left to do is prepare the soil around the last section. The seed that we put on a few weeks ago has burst through and started to grow.

Putting green being dressed by hand.

Course prep

With the opening day being on Sunday we are getting the courses prepared. The forecast for the rest of the week is quite wet so I have a couple of greenkeepers working late tonight so we get a cleaner cut on fairways and the first cut of rough around tees and greens. The strimmers have also been busy with us tidying up around bunkers, water features, trees etc.

The graden work we did on the putting green has started to knit together well, we gave it a light dress and brush by hand. This will give the grass something to grow into and takes out any bobble that may have been coming through as it settled down.

Open Day Sunday 24th June

Pro shop & course prep

The new pro shop opened at Piperdam a few weekends ago, it will be a great focal point for golf. So any golf related e.g. Tee times, clubs and accessories etc please go in and see our pro Owen Leslie who will be more than happy to sort you out. We're are also working hard to get the new locker room facilities opened ASAP.

A few more photos of the course prep today.

Club championship semi finals

The course is being set up for club championship semi finals tonight. The greens have been cut and rolled, the holes have been changed to pin position B and the bunkers have been fully raked. We have also carried on with our normal cutting regime with other areas.

Greens sprayed

The greens on the osprey course were sprayed with a tank mix that consisted off primo max (growth regulator), salute (stands the grass up) and vision pro. Vision pro was put on to aid in the recovery of the putting green after the graden work. Research has suggested that this will help with recovery as the pigment will make the plant take in more heat and you will get stronger growth in behind.

putting green

Ball roll on the putting green after graden operation.

Graden

We have tried out our new machine, the graden on the putting green. We fed it with dry kilin sand which goes down the 2mm lines that the thatch has been ripped out off. We also mixed a little bent seed through the sand. We then cleared up the debris, blew and brushed the surface and then rolled with the tru turf. The ball roll was very good afterwards, even though it is quite an invasive procedure. Below is a picture of the surface before, during and rolling after. I have a video of the green being putted on I will add once I get home.